Livorno

Livorno

The communist uprising in Livorno was a serious menace to Italy because that army sent tanks, not big tanks but big enough in narrow streets
At the railway station, I met a small woman with a big
suitcase, I offered to carry it for her; little did I know she lived outside the town; it was a burdensome walk on unlit roads
At the parvenue cafe, I met a woman I had seen before
Short black hair of dubious gender (let them guess)
sat drinking Pernod, smoking a cigarette that had the aroma of oriental express
I must have seen her before. Was it in Monte Carlo?
She beckoned to me to sit at her table
 I had a cold beer
and smoked a Chesterfield and my arm was numb carrying the bloody suitcase for a woman who told me she was an actress going to Rome to star in an upcoming movie called
La Strada
years later Kristiansand, a town in Norway, was on a catering course
I saw the film, yeah, it was the woman I had met in Livorno
A sudden blackout that might have been caused by the Reds
the cafe supplied candles, that on a night of uncertainty
made the plaza romantic, the Monte Carlo woman had vanished, like a cigarette ad on the TV screen